Wenn du lachst
by Ardvari
Summary: When she spent the night for the first time, he could barely sleep, staring at her while she slept, her naked form curled up underneath his sheets.


**A/N: **Ah the fluff... I really needed to write this to get the gloomy thoughts out of my head. I hope it gets all you guys's gloomy thoughts out of your respective heads. ;)

**Wenn du lachst**

_When you smile_

He spent the first little while in their relationship trying to figure out what she was all about. He liked to wear weird patterned shirts at home and he learned that for her there was nothing more comfortable than cotton pajama pants and seamless tank tops. Every little bit he found out about her made his heart swell. He had always enjoyed finding out about the little things.

When she spent the night for the first time, he could barely sleep, staring at her while she slept, her naked form curled up underneath his sheets. He was worried that she would find him boring, would find his daily routine boring.

Then he found a crossword puzzle one day that he hadn't finished and saw that she had filled out all the blank spots he had missed. The fact that she was as geeky as he was made him smile.

She used his razor and he caught her using his toothbrush one night because she had forgotten her own. It made his heart beat faster, made his breath catch in his throat as she blushed, asking for his permission with a raised eyebrow. Of course he didn't mind.

His mother had told him once that the best way to find out if you were in love with someone was to picture yourself using their toothbrush. If you couldn't, then you weren't in love. She could and he didn't mind.

That night he held her hand as she slept, comforted by the warmth of her skin on his and truly amazed that she was actually in his bed. She was _actually_ in his bed. This wasn't just a bizarre dream he had, this was the real thing.

He cooked her vegetarian lasagna out of a cookbook, following the recipe exactly so as not to mess it up. It took him hours, they didn't eat until midnight but she didn't mind. He was trying.

After a while, he didn't need to ask if she would come over, she followed him to his place just because she could and he surrendered a spare key to her. Contemplating his feelings about the fact that she now had the ability to walk into his townhouse whenever she wanted, he realized that he was excited about it.

There were nights when she was already in his bed by the time he got home but she would always wake up, turn towards him and grace him with one of her gap-toothed smiles. That was something he always looked forward to.

He fell asleep inside of her one night and they woke up in a tangle of limbs, giggling as they made love all over again.

When he watched her around the lab, he thought he saw a new spring in her step, she seemed happier, more carefree. The world seemed less annoying to her.

There was talk about the future and when she wasn't around, he missed her. Actually missed her when she didn't spend the night with him. He raked up the minutes on his phone calling her to wish her a good night when she stayed at her place. She rarely stayed at her place anymore.

During a bout of very necessary spring cleaning he cleaned out drawers for her and was proud that he was _that_ ready to be with her.

He wanted to tell her he loved her first but got too caught up in trying to find the right moment. She beat him to it one night while she was in the shower and he was brushing his teeth.

"I love you, you know?" she said, peeking around the shower curtain.

Almost choking on his toothpaste, he stepped into the shower, boxers and all, and hugged her. After years of denying her, he was glad he wasn't too late. He was glad that she loved him.

She accompanied him to one of his cockroach races, cheering for the roach he predicted to be the new champion. Apparently however, a lot of his cockroaches had stage fright. They still celebrated after the race, baking frozen pizzas and making love on his couch.

They made love a lot. He was surprised at the fact that he could keep up with her, being that he was about twice her age. She didn't mind, she never had.

As they walked along Lake Mead one hot summer day, a tourist snapped a picture of them with a Polaroid camera and he stuck the picture on his bedside table. It was a cute picture and he wanted more pictures of her. He was willing to take down some of his butterflies in order to make room for her on his wall. Then again, they really weren't that kind of couple. The butterflies stayed on his wall and she stayed on his bedside table.

She occasionally beat him at chess; he claimed that he let her win. They laughed a lot; he figured he had never laughed this much in his life.

Finally he asked her to move in and she denied, stating that this whole thing was a secret and they needed their respective addresses. Since she rarely spent time at her apartment he didn't mind, he would ask her again someday. There were a lot of questions he planned to ask her sooner or later.

He eventually shaved his beard off because she only had so many scarves to wear and people were starting to question why she was wearing scarves in the middle of summer. At first she missed the beard but then relished in all the newly exposed skin that had been hidden before. The new skin was celebrated thoroughly.

She relentlessly teased him about his hat, the horrendous straw monstrosity he occasionally sported. The first time she'd seen him come down the stairs with it, she had almost spit out her cereal because she had been laughing so hard. But he loved it and although she seriously questioned his sense of fashion, she loved him and therefore accepted his piece of wheat-gone-bad.

They settled into the relationship with far more ease than he had ever expected and she had ever hoped. It was simple really, the way they shared their lives with each other. When he held her hand at night, he wondered if they could be this comfortable with each other had they not gone through five years of pushing and pulling.

He pushed the thought from his head, reluctant to live in the past because the future winked at him from underneath a layer of frizzy brown hair.

_You're my once-in-a-lifetime…_

The End.


End file.
